


the Sacred Vase of Fatherhood

by local_doom_void



Series: Methods of Humanity [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Oblivious Harry Potter, Parent Voldemort (Harry Potter), Perceptive Harry Potter, Retired Voldemort, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Wise Mentor Nagini, he somehow manages to be both at once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: In the summer of 1994, Harry Potter tries his hand at interpersonal conflict resolution and mediation. It's a lot easier than he expected.
Relationships: Bartemius Crouch Jr. & Harry Potter, Bartemius Crouch Jr. & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter & Voldemort, Nagini & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Bartemius Crouch Jr., Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Methods of Humanity [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855237
Comments: 79
Kudos: 831





	the Sacred Vase of Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Our littlest parselmouth is back, and he cooperated with getting to the point!
> 
> * side eyes the next oneshot, which is going to go back to being in the POV of Lord Thomas V Riddle, He Of The Long Winded Introspection *
> 
> My codename for this series in my personal journals is "Voldedad". After 5 fics and over 40k words, we finally got there.

Voldemort is waiting for him on the platform. It's just like last year – he's even in the same spot that he was then. A man that Harry doesn't recognize is standing beside him, hanging on to his arm – but Voldemort is so often avoidant of touch that it's very easy for Harry to determine that the stranger must be Barty. For a moment he's surprised that Barty even came. Rather, he thinks he's surprised that Voldemort let Barty come. But then he looks again, and thinks about Voldemort touching the straw-haired man even as they stood in front of the fireplace in Thomas Moregrave's living quarters, ready to Floo away for the summer at a moment's notice, and Harry stops wondering about it at all.

Sirius is glaring at Voldemort from out the privacy charmed train window. (Harry cast the spell. Voldemort taught it to him earlier this year, and he's particularly proud of himself for remembering it and doing it successfully on his first try.) Ron and Hermione have already gone. Harry can see them out on the other end of the platform from Voldemort, distracting Mrs Weasley just in case she's got it into her head to look for Harry's ‘uncle’ and try to investigate him. Harry thinks in this moment that he really does have the best friends in the entire world.

He taps Sirius on the arm to try and distract him. "Ready?" He asks.

Sirius growls, but doesn't say anything when Harry looks at him in disappointment. He turns into a dog without further comment and plops his big furry dog head in Harry's lap, whining.

"Don't worry so much," Harry tells his godfather. "He's actually really nice."

Sirius does not stop whining. He does finally let Harry stand up and drag his trunk down from the rack. They exit the train from a different carriage than Ron and Hermione, just in case, and Harry keeps his head down as he makes his way towards where he knows he saw Voldemort standing.

It feels like forever. Even though Harry knows that Voldemort has made his fake uncle as real as an ex-Dark Lord can make a person who never existed for real, he still had bad dreams last night. They involved the headmaster standing on the platform and grabbing his arm before turning into uncle Vernon, and the exit from the platform had been the door leading to his cupboard – even as Voldemort was being attacked by all the Weasleys except for Ron, and by professor Lupin, all of them wearing the red robes that he only knows since this year belong to the wizard police –

But Dumbledore isn't here and neither is uncle Vernon. Harry rushes the last few steps to Voldemort and throws himself at the tall man. He can only really hug Voldemort's waist, but that's plenty for him.

Voldemort even remembers, after a moment, how to hug him back. Harry thinks that if it weren't for Sirius' aborted bark of panic, his heart might have exploded with the unbearable lightness of it all.

His voice only returns to him once they arrive back home.

"I still want pizza," he declares.

Voldemort is busy waving the glamour off of Barty's and his own face, and Sirius is gaping at the living room, but hasn't turned back into a human yet. Seeing the expression on a dog's face is very amusing.

" _Hatchling_ ," Nagini hisses, appearing silently from the hallway that leads to the patio. Sirius yelps and dances to the opposite side of the living room. Harry lights up and rushes over to the cobra.

" _I missed the hatchling_ ," Nagini goes on. She rears up to match Harry's height as he gets closer, and he hugs her as well. Her scales are warm from basking in the sun.

" _I missed you too!_ " Harry hisses back, and Sirius is apparently a human again, because his screech is very un-doglike.

Harry ignores him. Sirius is very dramatic, and in Harry's opinion he's just going to have to get used to it. Then he'll stop overreacting.

" _The two of you saw each other throughout the year, did you not?_ " Voldemort interjects, also with a hiss. " _Or am I imagining all those evenings you spent doing your best to inhabit my work den?_ "

" _That wasn't the same_," Harry objects. Voldemort groans.

Out of the corner of Harry's eye, he notices Barty and Sirius exchanging utterly baffled glances.

"Oh," he says. With a concentrated effort he switches back to English. "Dad, Barty and Sirius don't speak Parseltongue."

"HE IS NOT YOUR DAD!" Sirius shrieks. Barty just stares forward, looking rather hollow.

"We will discuss this contention later," Voldemort says. Harry is pretty sure he's gritting his teeth. "Nothing is decided. Harry, please go put some clothes on that are appropriate to the pizza place. Barty, Black, you will both follow me and be shown your rooms."

"You can't tell me what to do," Harry hears Sirius mumble. If Voldemort says anything in reply, though, Harry is already up the stairs and too far away to hear it.

He is pretty sure that Sirius is listening, despite his words.

Harry unpacks a nice muggle-ish outfit and heads back downstairs. None of the adults are back yet, so he chats with Nagini and gives her an overview of his year. She tells him all about how much Voldemort has been complaining about things. Apparently, this equates to him missing Harry’s presence, and being irritated with Sirius, and being worried about Barty. Harry considers these claims and decides they make perfect sense, so he begins to plot with Nagini as to how to solve these various problems.

Voldemort comes back down first, so they have to shut up. At least this year, Harry doesn’t need to have clothes transfigured for him, and he comments so to Voldemort. The man snorts into his glass of water, but doesn’t say anything more about it.

Barty comes down next. He barely even seems to see Harry, and walks immediately to Voldemort’s side and stays there. Voldemort weaves a different glamour for him this time. It doesn’t change his face at all, but does change his hair and eye color, and makes his freckles paler. When he’s finished, Barty looks like he could be related to Voldemort’s real face.

After giving himself gray eyes, Voldemort turns on Harry. Harry considers that he is remarkably calm about the fact of exactly who is pointing his wand at him. Since he recognises the idea that he will need glamours too – Dumbledore was making _comments_ near the end of the school year, after all – he gets up without complaining and trots over.

“Harry doesn’t need glamours!” says Sirius’ voice from the stairwell.

Harry peeks over. Sirius doesn’t look very happy – he just looks frazzled. He’s also still wearing the same fugitive clothes he’s been wearing for a couple of months, ever since Harry helped him rob the back room of one of Hogsmeade’s thrift stores, and while they’re better than what he had before, Harry’s pretty sure he can’t wear them into the pizza place without getting very concerned looks.

“In fact, he does need glamours,” Voldemort says smoothly. “We have discussed this already, Black, do keep up.”

“We have not discussed it??”

Voldemort doesn’t reply, because he’s glamouring Harry. After so many times being glamoured the same way last summer, this is familiar, and Harry doesn’t flinch when he sees his skin looking paler than it’s supposed to look. He grins, and waves at Barty before going to stand next to him.

Sirius has come closer, but still isn’t really close to any of them. He’s glaring at Voldemort again, and Harry frowns to himself. He’ll need to do something about that, too, and hopefully do it sooner rather than later.

“Do I not get a glamour?” Sirius demands with crossed arms. He reminds Harry of a child for a moment, before the boy realises what he’s thinking. Sirius is older than him, Harry reminds himself.

Voldemort just looks smug. “I thought you were Harry’s pet dog?” he asks.

That shouldn’t be funny at all, but Sirius’ shocked and utterly offended reaction makes it hilarious. Harry has to press a hand to his mouth so that he doesn’t laugh out loud.

“Just because my Animagus form is a dog doesn’t mean I _am_ a dog!” Sirius is yelling. “That isn’t how Animagus forms work!”

“Your face is known to the muggle populace as a dangerous serial killer,” Voldemort snaps, “and you still have little self-control. An exciteable dog is much easier to pass off than an exciteable adult man.”

Sirius tries to argue for a bit longer, but Voldemort isn’t going to budge. Harry can recognise that look on his face. Eventually, his prediction is proven true when Sirius turns back into a dog and circles Voldemort in a wide berth until he gets to Harry. Harry pats his doggy head in order to be conciliatory.

“ _This is practically satire_ ,” Voldemort groans under his breath in Parseltongue as they head for the door. Barty looks uncertain – Sirius is sticking very close to Harry’s leg, but still glaring at Voldemort. In defiance of all of this, Harry waves goodbye to Nagini, grabs Barty’s hand, and walks fast until he’s caught up to Voldemort. Sirius and Barty are forced to come with him.

This year, they eat outside on the back patio rather than inside in a booth. Barty looks uncomfortable and wary of everything until Voldemort tells him to move his chair so that he’s right next to the ex-Dark Lord, and then he calms down and starts looking at Voldemort instead. Sirius lays down on Harry’s feet under the table and he sneaks him pizza slices whenever Voldemort isn’t looking. He’s pretty sure Voldemort knows he’s doing it, but the man hasn’t said anything yet, so Harry plans to keep doing it unless he’s told to stop.

It’s almost like how he imagines it would be to have a family.

  


Summer’s a little different because of the two new people in the house. At the same time, it’s not actually as different as Harry thought it would be, and he wonders why that is. Maybe it’s because Barty is quiet and spends most of his time in places Harry doesn’t usually go. The quality of their dinners goes up a bit for some reason. Harry can’t figure it out until, on the third day back, he goes into the kitchen in the late afternoon to get some lemonade and take a break from homework and finds Barty in there, mixing ingredients.

“Oh,” Harry says. “You cook?”

Barty jumps. Harry feels a little bad.

“H-hi Harry,” Barty says. One hand steadies him against the counter. “Sorry, mmh, you startled me. Not that – I mean – ”

“It’s fine,” Harry says, because he doesn’t really understand what the problem is. Once he’s got his lemonade, he finds that Barty still isn’t back to work, and asks “Are you making dinner?”

“Y-yeah,” Barty says, and nods awkwardly at the bowl. Now that he looks, Harry notices some prepwork on a cutting board as well. “It’s just some salmon and risotto. Is – is that alright? With you, I mean? Do you eat fish?” A strange look passes over his face. “Oh no, I didn’t even ask if – I just assumed – ”

“I eat pretty much anything,” Harry says quickly. He’s worried if he lets Barty go on, the man might start crying, and he doesn’t really feel equipped to deal with that. “You’ve been cooking for the past few nights, haven’t you?”

Barty nods earnestly.

“Well, I really like your cooking. You’re better at it than Voldemort is.”

He would have said ‘Dad’, because he and Voldemort are currently waging a sort of cold war over this. Harry is certain he’ll win, but he needs to put in the effort to do that, so he needs to stake out his position whenever possible. Yet there’s always been something odd in Barty’s face when he hears that word, and it’s not an oddness like Sirius gets. Harry can brush Sirius’ reactions aside as something he’ll get used to and be able to deal with.

Barty… does not seem likely to do the same.

Harry considers he might need more information.

For now, though, Barty looks like he’s about to cry again at the idea that he could be better at something than Voldemort. Harry isn’t sure if this is outrage on Voldemort’s behalf, since apparently Voldemort’s amazingness is not to be questioned ever, or shock at the assertion that Barty could be that good at something, to outstrip even Voldemort.

He doesn’t ask, and excuses himself to find Nagini so he can hold a sort of war council.

If he’s learned anything, it’s that Nagini knows more about everyone in this house than even Voldemort knows.

  


Harry wants to buy Sirius new clothes. Voldemort refuses to let Harry use his money for this, even though it’s _Harry’s_ money. Harry is quite irritated with him, until Voldemort points out that Sirius bought Harry a Firebolt with _what_ money, exactly?

A plan of action immediately forms in Harry’s head.

  


“I want to have ice cream in Diagon with Ron and Hermione!”

“Excuse me?”

“Also, I want to bring my dog. And maybe we’ll go to Gringotts. I haven’t said hi to my account manager in a while.”

Instead of being angry, or affronted, Voldemort is smirking at him. Harry wonders if he should be worried.

“ _Why Harry_ ,” he hisses. “ _That is nearly slither-in-like of you._ ”

Well, Harry thinks to himself as he tries to come up with a response. If nothing else, he won’t think it’s a bad thing.

“Yeah well, the hat almost put me in _slither-in_ , so that makes sense,” he says, switching to hisses in the middle, and does his best to seem aloof. “You’re probably a bad influence on me.”

  


It takes a lot less time than Harry expected to arrange an ice-cream date without alerting Mrs Weasley. Part of him feels bad for trying so hard to elude and deceive her. She’s been nice to him. But on the other hand, it was only a week or two one summer. And when that week or two was over…

Well. She didn’t take him into her house for good.

Somebody else did that.

So Harry feels kind of bad, but not really that bad. Not really. He only feels abstractly bad – he feels bad because he knows he probably should feel bad, but he doesn’t feel bad at all.

Ron gets it. That’s why Harry thinks Ron’s a pretty good friend. Hermione gets it, too, of course, but with her it isn’t as imperative as it is with Ron. She doesn’t live in the same house as Mrs Weasley, after all.

Hermione and Ron don’t believe him when he says that he can do magic in the Alley, so he casts a blurring disguise on himself just like Voldemort taught him, and they wait in the main square for a Ministry owl. None comes. This sets Hermione off, but not at Harry – no, she’s more concerned about Fairness and Equity and Opportunities. Harry lets her talk without interrupting as they head to Fortescue’s, because the other thing he’s learned from Voldemort is that staying quiet can sometimes be a very good decision.

He casts the privacy charm over their ice cream shop booth, too, when nobody is looking. Hermione looks mutinous again, but Harry’s still pretty sure she’s not mad at him. Sirius lays down on Harry’s feet again, and Harry ignores the fact that Voldemort is probably in the Alley right now as well in order to keep an eye on Harry. The tall man isn’t in the shop with them, so that’s alright.

He wouldn’t have expected that he’d be alright with an adult hovering. Usually he hates it, actually – he has hated it in the past. But when it’s Voldemort doing the hovering, he never seems to manage to feel quite as resentful.

  


Once they get Sirius some money, it’s not hard to convince Voldemort to help Harry glamour Sirius up so they can go clothes shopping. Harry is pretty sure that Voldemort is once again hanging out in the Alley with that same distant hovering, and again, he cannot bring himself to be bothered by it.

  


In the end, Barty is a much easier problem than Sirius is. Barty takes care of himself, even without Harry needing to do anything beyond listen to Nagini and understand. Of course, Harry was aware even without her help that Barty was – in _some_ kind of love with Voldemort. Nagini just allowed him to see the shape of it. He thinks that if he’d come to live with Voldemort that first summer and had found a Barty living there, one who Voldemort had never mentioned, that he might have been the same way.

Instead of that scenario, Harry got here first. So now Barty is dealing with a Harry who lives in his house, and isn’t sure who Voldemort likes better. He’s worried that the answer to that question isn’t ‘Barty’.

Harry doesn’t plan for there to ever have to be an answer.

But again – somehow – Voldemort gets there first. On the first evening that Harry notices it, he can’t say for sure if it’s been happening before, or if this is the first time. He therefore starts to pay a bit closer attention, and finds that this is happening every night, for better or for worse. Harry, though, is quite certain it’s for the better.

Harry’s never been young enough, or really touchy enough, to want to cuddle when he has nightmares. He’s not at all surprised that Barty is that touchy. However, he is surprised that Voldemort is willing to let Barty sleep in his bed with him and to curl into him when he’s not feeling well. Based on Barty’s improved everything, though, Harry is pretty sure that it’s doing him a lot of good.

One morning Sirius even comments that Barty’s looking a lot better than he has been. If even Sirius can notice it, then Harry’s certain that Voldemort can.

  


The problem of Sirius takes a lot more thought and effort.

Harry isn’t sure how to demonstrate what he knows to be true – the truth, of course, being that Voldemort is fine, and nice, when the back of Harry’s head knows that Voldemort is not in fact nice to most people and that he definitely still murders people.

Harry isn’t sure if Voldemort knows that he knows this, but Harry knows it all the same.

That isn’t the point, though. The point is that Voldemort is nice, and fine, and Sirius can’t seem to see it. He jumps a little whenever Voldemort appears in a room. He looks torn between horror and outrage when Harry happily stands close to the tall, dark, red-eyed man and asks for homework help. (Voldemort’s really good at homework help.) He avoids Nagini like the plague, which is unfortunate, because Harry really enjoys spending time with her, but he also wants to spend time with Sirius. He feels like a man who’s mostly a dog and a large snake who’s smarter than most humans should be able to get along with no trouble.

Maybe it’s that Sirius doesn’t speak Parseltongue?

Is there a way to teach somebody Parseltongue?

  


“Hey dad, is there a way to teach somebody Parseltongue?”

Voldemort does a funny motion with his face that Harry imagines was a muscle twitch.

“Have we not spoken about that form of address?” is all Voldemort says. He hasn’t looked up from the book he’s been annotating. Nagini is on the back of his chair, napping, and Harry definitely saw Barty upstairs napping in Voldemort’s bed, and Sirius outside napping in the hammock. He knows they won’t be disturbed, so he doubles down.

“ _I mean, we sort of did_ ,” he says, and switches to Parseltongue for best measure. “ _But not actually, really. All you did was say ‘absolutely not’ a lot and then you told me I had learning tests to go take. Which is a pretty dad-like thing to say, by the way._ ”

Voldemort puts his quill down and puts his head in his hands.

“ _I am not a ‘dad’_ ,” he hisses. “ _You cannot possibly suggest such a thing._ ”

“ _I’m not suggesting it._ ”

“ _You saying it does not make it real._ ”

“ _Does so._ ”

“Harry,” Voldemort drawls. It is more than anything else the switch from Parseltongue to English that tells Harry that this is serious.

The man goes on. “I recognise that neither of us particularly enjoy discussing our mutual history. But you must be aware that you had a father. He cared enough about you to try and throw a vase at me before he rushed me without a wand in hand, in order to protect you, and then I killed him.”

Harry hasn’t, in fact, heard that before. He pauses to try and work out his feelings before he says something. Nagini is a big advocate of always saying what you mean, and right now he isn’t sure what he means.

“Okay,” he says first. It’s not a statement of approval, but just one of acceptance, for now. It’s not untrue, after all. Harry did have a dad, and the dad he could have had – the dad he _did_ have for, for a year and a bit? – that dad is dead because Voldemort looked at him and said ‘no’.

He tries to discover if he is angry about this. He finds a little spark when he searches, but when he tries to point that little spark at Voldemort, it gutters out without further comment.

The question of who he’s angry at is for later, then.

“Okay,” he says again, because it seems worth repeating. “But you aren’t trying to kill me anymore.”

Voldemort doesn’t answer verbally, but the look he gives Harry is withering. Harry grins.

“So,” he says, “it actually worked, then. My old dad throwing a vase at you, I mean. He died to protect me and it worked, because you take care of me now instead of trying to kill me. So you’re my dad now.”

“That is not how fatherhood works, for Morgana’s sake – ”

“It is if I say it is,” says Harry before Voldemort can try blinding him with really pretty words. “Maybe that vase was the vase of fatherhood. You’re doomed now. The sacred vase has been passed on. You even bought me all those clothes all on your own – ”

Voldemort chases him out of the library with a barrage of stinging hexes. Harry goes without complaint, cackling, because he thinks he’s very close to winning.

  


Later he realises that Voldemort weasled out of answering his question, and accosts him inside of his bedroom, because it’s late at night and he might forget tomorrow. Barty is wrapped up in blankets and cuddled up to Voldemort’s side, but Harry pretends not to notice, so that both of them can keep pretending that he has no idea.

He wonders if they would get married if one of them was a girl. Then he thinks again, and wonders why two boys can’t just get married if they want to.

It does, unfortunately, turn out that there’s no way to teach somebody Parseltongue if they don’t already speak it. Harry goes back to the drawing board.

  


“You know that I would be your dad, don’t you, pup?” Sirius asks him one day. He sounds sort of desperate, but Harry thinks that’s more to do with Voldemort than Harry. They’ve been talking a lot more often these days, and Harry’s tried his best not to eavesdrop, but he can’t really help it if Sirius gets loud and says Harry’s name a bunch. It’s pretty obvious that they’re talking about him.

Either way, the nature of this question finally makes something click in Harry’s mind. He stares at Sirius for a moment – long enough that he worries he’s giving Sirius the wrong idea. He’s not sure which wrong idea it is, but he shakes his head to try and dispell it anyway.

“I guess,” he says. He can’t help sounding doubtful. “But you’re a wanted fugitive right now.”

“Not for long,” Sirius says confidently. “They’ll definitely find Wormtail guilty instead. Once they get through with the stupid trial…”

Harry privately wonders if they will. He hates thinking this, but he thinks it anyway. He thinks he was a little more optimistic about the Ministry once – no, that isn’t exactly true. The Ministry just didn’t seem to exist when he was younger and first heard of it. Ever since second year, though, he knew they were obviously incompetent – and then he later knew that as governments go, they’re even worse.

Voldemort had sources, after all. He’s sometimes a bit like a very scary Hermione.

“You got me a Firebolt,” Harry tells Sirius in the here and now.

The man perks up and grins. “I did!”

Harry can just barely make out the shape of the argument in the back of his mind. He doesn’t know if he wants to say it to Sirius, but it’s beginning to take tangible form.

Sirius got him a Firebolt because Harry wanted a new broom. Sirius has never gotten Harry anything without asking if he needs it first, unless you count all the times he’s tried to convince Harry that he needs more pranking materials. Harry thinks that if he hadn’t met Voldemort, he might be more interested in pranks than he finds himself.

Voldemort did not get Harry a Firebolt. He did get Harry clothes that fit him. He still, to this day, has never allowed Harry to make dinner.

This distinction is important, for some reason.

He doesn’t mention the clothes to Sirius just yet.

  


“You got me clothes last year,” Harry proclaims to Voldemort one evening while Sirius is being a dog in the backyard and playing frisbee with Barty. (Nagini looks like she wants to play, but Sirius is still scared of her. Harry’s giving her scale scratches to distract her.)

“I did,” Voldemort says.

“The money didn’t come from my vault,” Harry goes on. He’s never actually confirmed this before. Last summer he had both hoped it had come from his vault, and hoped that it hadn’t. Now, he thinks he already knows the answer.

Voldemort snorts, and proves him right. “Of course it did not,” he says. “That is a school trust vault. Besides,” he goes on, and flips to the next page of his book, “I have more than enough money.”

Harry squints at the book without trying to read it. He’s thinking. “Where did you get so much money?”

“Tithes.”

“What’s tithes?”

“My followers submitted ten percent of their income every month to me for the privilege of being associated with me, and to continue to reap the benefits of my protection.”

Harry boggles. “Dark Lords do that?”

“Why do you think I was so terrifying to the Ministry?”

Harry frowns for a moment and considers this. “Killing people?”

Voldemort sighs. “One of the reasons. Guess again.”

So it must have to do with the tithes. Actually, Harry thinks he ought to have realised that sooner.

“... What were you protecting people from?” he asks slowly.

Voldemort smiles. It’s one of the ones he makes when he’s feeling satirical – whatever that means. Harry hasn’t looked up the word yet.

“Why, from the Ministry, of course.”

  


In the hammock, Harry thinks about the Ministry. He can’t come to any satisfactory decisions. The only one that arrives for him is –

They are either stupid, or they are evil. Not evil in the large, dramatic, cackling way Voldemort is considered to be evil, which Voldemort is pretty emphatic isn’t a real thing anyway. But Harry thinks that they might be something that he’s pretty sure is evil, and that thing is –

Shortsighted. Petty. Ignorant. And very, very self-centered.

He tries to imagine that they’ll care that Sirius was innocent. But all the kids in Hogwarts were innocent, and the Ministry didn’t really see a lot of problems with putting a cloud of eldritch horrors near them for six months.

  


On Harry’s birthday, Sirius keeps trying to spend time with him. He makes a cake and ropes Barty (but not Voldemort or Nagini) into helping, and then into giving Harry his presents. Harry assumes that he somehow managed to convince Voldemort to let him leave, glamoured, so he could buy them – or maybe Barty bought them with some of Sirius’ left over money while _he_ was glamoured. He isn’t going to ask, because trying to keep track of every adult in this house all at once is the way to madness. If he really needs to know something, he can probably ask Nagini.

The cake is nice, he supposes. He does like sweets, having had little opportunity to have them. His presents are things that he’s pretty sure Sirius thinks he ought to like. To be fair, he does like the massive pack of chocolate frogs, because he can probably add more cards to his collection, and he likes the massive pack of pumpkin pasties, because you can always do with sweets.

He’s unsure about the various prank products.

It’s strange. By the end of the day, he feels like he’s presiding over two children who are having their own birthday party. He’s not even angry about this, because it’s nothing at all like being at Dudley’s birthday parties. He’s already had his birthday party – for himself – last night in bed. Nagini even slithered in to say hello, and then coiled up on top of him for the rest of the night. He’s pretty sure that there’s no day planned to be spent with Hermione and her parents this year, because Hermione didn’t sound shifty on the phone yesterday, but that’s perfectly alright with him.

Sirius keeps trying to have a wrapping-paper-ball fight with Barty. Eventually, Barty even starts throwing them back.

  


Once Harry notices one instance, he remembers others.

He and Voldemort, Harry has come to understand, are very quiet. They don’t speak a lot. Harry had always thought of himself as a little loud, because weren’t Gryffindors stereotypically loud? But no – he thinks back on last summer and finds whole days in him memory where he spoke maybe one or two hissed exchanges with Voldemort or Nagini, and otherwise focused on whatever he was focusing on. He and Voldemort and Nagini are all terribly good at finding things to do, or even on sitting or lying still and doing nothing.

Sirius and Barty are louder more often than not, and can’t sit still. More than once Harry found Barty babbling softly to himself as he cleans something or other that didn’t really look like it needed cleaning. When there’s nothing to clean, Barty never looks too great. 

Harry’s taken to not picking up after himself in response. It’s terribly difficult to do, and he keeps his bedroom organised anyway, because otherwise he doesn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep. Barty seems happier when there are books and papers to tidy, though.

The only times Barty doesn’t talk or move are when he’s kneeling at Voldemort’s feet. This usually happens in the library while Voldemort is sitting in his usual armchair, or on the patio while Voldemort is sitting in one of the patio chairs. At first Harry thought this was a little odd, but Barty seems to benefit from it, and Voldemort doesn’t seem to mind, so he supposes it’s just something that works for them.

Sirius’ loudness is a bit less verbal and a lot more physical. He wants to be running around and playing and doing things all the time. He whines when Harry wants to spend a lot of time reading books or doing extra research for his summer homework. Earlier in the break he had always given in, feeling guilty, but eventually Nagini cornered him and told him to stop being stupid, so now he tries to keep a balance. He doesn’t want to never play tag or Frisbee with Sirius, but he doesn’t want to always play, either.

Thinking of the cobra’s lecture, Harry suddenly realises that Voldemort has been pointedly not commenting on how much time Harry spends with Sirius. He immediately feels very stupid indeed.

  


Late that day, Harry pretends he’s due to have a phone call with Hermione, but instead he drags Voldemort outside with him at the last minute. This way, they can really talk without being interrupted. Voldemort complains at him, but without the sharp tone he uses when he’s actually not happy.

“Is there any particular reason for this?” he asks, raising a single eyebrow. His eyes are gray again, and Harry’s had his scar glamoured away and his eyes shifted from green to brown.

Harry shrugs, and skips once. “I thought we could use a walk,” he offers.

“And why is that?”

“Walks are nice, aren’t they?”

Somehow, that elicits a pause of contemplation.

“Yes,” Voldemort says slowly. “But I feel as if you have ulterior motives.”

Well, Harry never pretended to be really good at acting. Not like Voldemort is, certainly.

“I do,” he admits. “I wanted to… I thought we should talk.”

“About?”

It’s a really nice country road, when Harry bothers to pay attention to it. He wonders how he ever stood living in Privet Drive for so long.

“Well, mostly Sirius,” he says, because that seems to be the broadest of topics to cover all of Harry niggling questions. “A little bit of Barty, but I think Barty’s a lot easier to help than Sirius.”

He gets no reply, and looks over to find Voldemort looking back at him with keen interest.

“Did I say something?” Harry asks.

“I am wondering whether to be surprised you noticed,” Voldemort says slowly.

“So they are, then?” Harry asks uncertainly. “I mean – they’re not – ?” He cuts himself off, frustrated. Voldemort waits until he can continue.

“It’s just,” he murmurs, staring at some tall grasses waving in the breeze, “sometimes I feel like they’re kids? And I’m older than them? But _I’m_ a kid?”

Instead of telling Harry that he’s being stupid, Voldemort only nods.

“In both their cases,” he says slowly, “they have just gone from the age of twenty at most, to the present day. Neither of them are technically twenty, physically speaking, but when the mind is not allowed to age for so long due to an imprisonment… it tends to go backwards instead.”

“Oh,” Harry says.

They walk in silence for a bit.

“So,” Harry says slowly, “they’re both kind of like kids?”

“Mm.”

“Is that why Barty’s been sleeping in your bed?”

“He has nightmares,” Voldemort says shortly. “Apparently I am shield enough.”

“Makes sense,” says Harry, because it does. If he wasn’t sure if Voldemort liked him, then it might not make sense. But he is quite sure that Voldemort likes him, and with that certainty comes a sense that if he’s ever threatened, he has some level of safety to turn to in this tall, red-eyed man.

It’s strange to think of two adults as kids. Harry doesn’t feel older than them right now. He’s pretty sure, though, that at some point one of them will again do something that makes him feel it very keenly indeed.

“You don’t have to avoid me, either,” he says slowly. “If Sirius can’t get used to you then that’s his problem. Unless you’re being mean to him when I’m not around?”

“I am certainly not being any more blunt than I usually am to you.”

Harry nods, satisfied. “Then it’s his problem. And I meant what I said.”

Voldemort glances down at him. Harry smiles back as brightly as he can.

“I _have_ told you, Harry – ”

“I don’t like it when people pick my family for me,” Harry interrupts, and then has to fall silent as the truth of it soaks into his bones.

Voldemort doesn’t say anything about that at all.

  


“If you ever call me _father_ , I am disowning you,” Voldemort mutters when they’re almost back to the house. “And I reserve the right to prevent the dog man from committing idiocies.”

Harry narrowly prevents himself from whooping aloud.

Later that night, when Voldemort very obviously walks into Harry’s bedroom and places a suspicious parchment envelope on Harry’s bedside table without comment, Harry yells “Thanks dad!” after him. He thinks that he can hear Voldemort scoffing in the distance.

He pretends that the whoop of victory that he actually can’t hold in is because of the three Quidditch World Cup tickets in the envelope. Honestly, that’s still half the reason.

  


The next morning, Harry goes to find Sirius after he has breakfast. Thanks to his conversation with Dad, he finally has the words he needs to explain something that he’s been trying to explain all summer. When he finds his dogfather, the man is lying on the floor in one of the sun rooms looking exhausted, while Barty cleans around him in silence for once.

“... I can come back?” Harry offers hesitantly, sensing a certain heaviness in the air.

But Sirius shakes his head. “Don’t bother,” he says. A weird noise bubbles up from his chest. “I’m sorry, Harry, I’m a shit godfather.”

Harry’s pretty sure that’s fake. “You’re not,” he says, and scoffs. Barty gives him an odd look when he does, one that Harry doesn’t have time to even frown at in confusion before it’s gone.

“I am,” Sirius insists anyway. “I left you alone for twelve years, and _that guy_ had to take care of you!”

“He’s only taken care of me for two summers now,” Harry says, but he can’t contradict the basis of the statement. Voldemort does, in fact, take care of him.

“You shouldn’t have needed him to take care of you for _any_ summers! I should’ve been there! And the bloody Ministry bastards never will pardon me so I _can_ be there, the way they’re going!”

“Maybe,” is all Harry says. He’s glad, in a horrible way, that Sirius has realised on his own that the Ministry – as it is – will never pardon him. “But it didn’t happen like that. And I do like him.”

“I know you do,” Sirius whines. “He’s such a bastard.”

The cleaning rag flops across Sirius’ face when Barty tosses it at him. Sirius makes an offended, mock-angry noise. Harry giggles.

“Okay, fine, a handsome bastard,” Sirius says as he lifts the rag off his face. “Is that better?”

“Much,” Barty says.

“Ew, Barty, this thing is gross.”

“Well, I don’t have a wand, do I?”

“I could lend you my wand,” Harry says.

Both Barty and Sirius boggle at him now. Harry endures it for as long as he can before he shrugs uncomfortably.

“I mean, you’re both basically family now too, right?” he offers. “Isn’t that what family does?”

Barty looks like he’s going to cry again. Harry panics for a moment, but then the man seems to control it.

“Family?” Sirius repeats, looking boggled still. “But – but you picked _him_.”

Harry squints at the fugitive on the floor. “I did,” he says slowly. “But just because I pick him for one thing doesn’t mean I can’t pick you for another one, Sirius.” By the time he finishes, his voice is frustrated. “Proper families aren’t just two people.”

Sirius is still gaping at him. Harry worries he’s broken him.

“... Oh,” he finally says. “Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> “Just because he’s sort of alright doesn’t mean he’s not a bastard,” Sirius says loudly in earshot of Voldemort once they go back to the kitchen.
> 
> After one glance at Barty’s face, Harry wordlessly hands his wand over to the blonde and then sits down next to Voldemort to enjoy the show.


End file.
